Were You Not Entertained?!

But if you were, and came back for more, I can’t thank you enough. Why all the grand proclamations of seeming finality? Because this is my last day at SportsGrid, the [plucky] World Wide Web sports destination I’ve worked for since its launch in May 2010. My former colleague Dan Fogarty and I were but internet toddlers in those early days, but through learning on the job, our wits (I like to think), a few slideshows of b00b13z, and pluck, we plucked* our way to a not-insignificant following, a fact of which I’ll always be proud.

Of course, though, a person cannot expect to achieve success by plucking alone. And so, some thanks: thanks to our readers, again. This would all be pretty useless if not for you. Thanks to Dan Abrams, Andrew Cedotal, and Colby Hall for giving me this opportunity to begin with, and additional thanks to Dan for trusting me enough with it to eventually let me take over the site. Huge thanks to the guy I took over the site from, Dan Fogarty, a great colleague then and a great friend now. Really, thanks to everyone I worked with at Abrams Media – a talented, hard-working group if I ever saw one. And I did see one. (It was this one.)

This is also a time to wish good luck. In particular, I wish good luck to the SportsGrid team going forward: Eric Goldschein, Rick Chandler, Matt Rudnitsky – a name you might know because… well, he already writes for SportsGrid – and the RotoExperts team, as they all continue to join forces.

And of course, I wish good luck to Dylan Murphy, my second-in-command ’round these parts, who also departs after today. Not that he needs luck, excellent writer and generally motivated sort that he is, but I wish him much of it anyway. And Dylan also has a few things to say. They are as follows.

Dylan’s Farewell Message

So, SportsGrid people: I’m leaving, too. It’s been a good run. Obviously my tenure hasn’t been as long as Glenn’s – he was rubbing sticks together with Fogarty back in their one-room studio – but my past year here, from weekend editing to associate editing, has been great. I wrote some things that I’m proud of and thoroughly enjoyed the co-worker bonding thing at our local watering hole, but mostly I’m just glad to have been surrounded by great writers and better people. The daily tedium of news-scrounging can be a bit harrowing at times, but to have the editorial freedom and oversight, from Dan through Glenn through Matt and whoever else I interacted with on the SportsGrid back pages, has made me a better writer and immensely proud. I’ll miss this place, the office, the weirdly dead silence and all, and the occasional free pizza. But mostly I’ll miss you, reader, even if you yell at me sometimes.

And that’s a good way to sum it up – we’ll still be around the internet. I’ll be around here, for example. So I hope I’ll catch you there and that you’ll drop me a line. You’ve taught me much, readers, but judging by the fact that I spent part of my last day on the job being willingly baited by a troll, I still have much to learn. I owe y’all a whole lot for your internetty companionship thus far – let’s keep it going, shall we? Thanks in advance.

*I don’t mean to pick on Richard Deitsch, who called us that in the above-linked story. I just like being referred to as plucky – or at least a thing I do being referred to as plucky – and damn it, THIS IS MY MOMENT SO LET ME HAVE IT.